In tomato plants, the gene that governs fruit color has two forms (alleles), denoted C and c. Each plant carries a pair of these alleles. If the combination is CC or Cc, then the plant will have red fruit. If it is cc, then the plant will have yellow fruit. When plants are crossed (mated) to produce an offspring, the offspring plant inherits either allele from a "parent" with equal probability 0.5 and inherits alleles independently from each "parent." Suppose that two tomato plants with allele combinations Cc and cc are crossed. The probability that the resulting offspring plant has red fruit is A. 1/2. B. 1. C. 1/4.

Nov 16th 2012, 07:19 AM

RBowman

Re: probability problem

Hi, asilvester.

I suggest making a table, also known as a Punnett square, for this type of problem.

X| C | c
c|Cc|cc
c|Cc|cc

That's the best I could do to make the table, but it works. There are four squares here, each representing a possible outcome for the offspring. Two outcomes are Cc, a red fruit. Two are cc, a yellow fruit. This is interpreted to be that the probability of a red fruit is 1/2.

Hope this helps, and if you need further help with problems like this, I suggest doing some research on Punnett squares. They are an extremely useful technique when solving these types of problems.